Selling the Cloud Sublime - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 91

more ways to construct a discourse around the cloud and, through this,
to sell cloud computing. Among the many signs of this change, where
once we talked about advertising agencies, today they are just agencies
whose creative talent designs many forms of communication, including,
but certainly not limited to, advertising. The expansion of media forms
in the twenty-irst century has certainly helped to open new promotional
opportunities. For example, as one would expect, all of the major and
minor cloud-computing providers promote their services on their own
websites and blogs. Their sites are generally informative, but it is easy to
dismiss them as corporate self-promotion. Nevertheless, they do serve addi-
tional functions. When the Microsoft site reported that its research found
that two-thirds of small and medium-sized businesses lacked a marketing
strategy, a widely circulating private blog picked up the item in its lead
to a story on how cloud-computing companies can improve marketing
( Cloud Tweaks 2013). Here a corporate website provides information to
a site that has a greater claim to objectivity, thereby conveying legitimacy
for the Microsoft igures. In this respect, company sites provide nourish-
ment for the growth of the promotional food chain.
Cloud discourse is also built by the many online sites, including
blogs, newsletters, and reports on research, that promote cloud com-
puting without a clear association with any particular cloud enterprise.
This enables them to enjoy a sense of objectivity even as they advance a
partisan view. Most of these bear the cloud label: Cloud Tweaks , Talkin'
Cloud , and Asia Cloud Forum are among the many. Some are connected
to larger companies that do IT research and sell cloud products. Others
are just the product of an enterprising individual or small business. A
number of these sites are directly linked to a sales effort. For example,
to download a white paper on overcoming challenges facing cloud
computing, I was asked to provide a street address and phone number.
I did so, found the paper useful, and received a phone call the next day
inquiring about my interest in buying a cloud service for my company.
Another blog followed a similar process but was even more clearly aimed
at helping IT people convince their bosses to move to the cloud. Titled
“How to Beat a Cloud Skeptic,” the paper I downloaded from that
site “details four key steps to dispel skeptics' fears so your organization
can take advantage of the cloud's many beneits” (Shields 2013). The
article “Five Different Ways to Sell Cloud Computing” conveys the sales
message on Cloud Tweaks but with a humorous touch (Kenealy 2013).